Archive for January, 2008

Hi dear Zappafellows (or Zäppi perhaps),
We the Zappateers would like to invite all of you to our mini-festival in Nijmegen Holland on March 14-15. It’s an indoor event, rather a party than a festival with hopefully some 120 attendant plus the bands.

Zappanale 19: tickets on sale now! – “Due to many concerned calls and mails, we hereby want to relieve our fans and artists: there is absolutely no need to be worried. Zappanale 19 will be realized as planned.”

The Zappa Wazoo liner notes mention “Cover Art ‘Mundo Invisible’ (oil on canvas, 60″ x 72″) by Christopher Mark Brennan, 2003″ which itself is a derivative work of the excellent Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (oil on canvas, 46.5″ x 65.5″) by Salvador Dalí, 1940.
Actually I was curious to know whether any permission was needed and/or requested to the Dalí Family Trust (la Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí) prior painting and then publishing. This painting should not fall in the public domain before 2010 thanks to the copyright extensions, right?
Does this constitute a copyright infrigement? Does this respect the original intent of the painter?

Robert Plant | No love for new music – “Wrinkly Robert showed his age with the rant at two of the world’s biggest bands as they were played over the stereo at Fifty Five Bar. He rubbished Radiohead and the Red Hot Chili Peppers – and then demanded to hear weirdo rocker CAPTAIN BEEFHEART instead.”

In honor of our friendly neighborhood webmaster, Barry, and due to unfortunate circumstances beyond his control whereby the discography section can no longer post images of a thumbnail nature, I post the above.Hey, any excuse for a guitar solo is a good excuse.

An ambigram of the words ‘Frank Zappa.’ A bit of a hero of mine is Zappa, and I’ve wanted to design an ambigram around his name for a while. I came up with a symmetrical totem solution which I’m very please with. I particularly like the square at the bottom of the design hinting at his famous trademark beard and moustache!

Made by Derren Lee Poole, ambigram designer – this is a nice one, hm? I hope it’s not a copyright infringement…

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to share some beers with one of the students responsible for this very odd monument. He explained to me in a dark Vilnius pub how he and his friends, caught up in the early 1990s euphoria of post-communist freedom, decided to honor one of their favorite American singers whom they clandestinely listened to during communism because authorities banned his decadent western music.

Amazingly, during a crazy time when all things seemed possible, the students were able to convince the city government of their worthy Zappa cause. Even more remarkable, was that the students commissioned local sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas to create the bust. Prior to this commission, Bogdanas sculpted only what the state told him to sculpt, which was mostly Lenin statues and other heroes of the socialist revolution.

In the far right corner is Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, while rock legend Frank Zappa stares from the left. But the subject that made Bogdanas best known, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, is noticeably absent from the cluttered display.

This is URBANGRAFFITO . . . it is my responsibility to research all the laws that haven’t been passed yet. It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you to the potential consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be performing which could eventually lead to Incarceration (or affect your parent’s credit rating). Our criminal institutions will soon be full of little creeps like you who do wrong things . . . and many of them were driven to these crimes by a horrible force called MUSIC!

Our studies have shown that this horrible force is so dangerous to society at large that laws are being drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever! Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won’t conflict with the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate the Intellectual Property Protection Act).

I bring you now a special presentation to show what can happen to you if you choose a career in MUSIC . . . The WHITE ZONE is for uploading and downloading only . . . if you have to upload or download copyrighted material, go to the WHITE ZONE . . .

Imagine if you will legislation that enjoys the support of such large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America (amongst them, no doubt, a recent litigant against this very weblog) known as the Intellectual Property Protection Act, expected to be introduced in the very near future.

This bill will give the U.S. Justice Department the ability to combat Intellectual Property crime in bold new ways. It would soon become a new federal crime just to attempt to commit copyright infringement. All attempts, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison. This legislation would also permit the bypassing of copy protection even for “fair use” purposes.

It would permit wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, and would establish a unit within the FBI itself with budgets of $20 million which would create advanced tools of forensic science to investigate copyright crimes.

This legislation would amend existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work in question was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. It would boost criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses), for the noncommercial piracy and posting of copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.

This legislation would also create civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized will be disposed of, for instance, at a government auction following the rules established by federal drug laws. Copyright holders will be able to impound records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in infringements, including server logs, IP addresses, and everything that person has ever downloaded.

It appears the future that FZ envisaged with the release of Joe’s Garage has arrived as of 2008. Quite soon we’ll all have two computers: a clean one we all do our internet business on, and a dirty one that will never ever be connected to the internet.

If you haven’t already, we still urge you to sign the petition regarding the ZFT’s recent “Aggressive Actions”. 1208 signatures at this time of writing — not too shabby for a petition that’s been online for 4 days, but the more the merrier, obviously. You’ll find yourself in the company of such illustrious names as Jon Naurin, Robert Kevorkian, Don Preston, Jimmy Carl Black, Nigey Lennon and Candy Zappa.
For those of you who wish to be kept abreast (now there’s a wonderful expression): there’s a direct link to the petition at the right of this page. See that little banner with Dr Sharl’s hand waving at you? Indeed.

Meanwhile, these litigations have been gaining interest on several weblogs who specialize in intellectual property and fair use. Couple of links:

Hello and Welcome to the Fine Print!
killuglyradio.com is a community partly dedicated to Frank Zappa. We are non-profit and not in any way endorsed or connected with The Zappa Family Trust and/or Zappa.com. The Zappa Family Trust and Dweezil Zappa have no formal or informal association and in no way condone or support our efforts to further enhance knowledge of and appreciation of the many and vast talents of Frank Zappa. Any content related to FZ is nothing more than a fan's efforts to broaden the knowledge and appreciation of the many works of Frank Zappa. As such, any Zappa related content exists solely as an educational tool to help achieve that goal. Lest ye forget: lawyers are the scum of the earth. You might want to remember that.